Web Design for Law Firms

Best Practices for Law Firm Website Design

Let’s look at the best practices our Toronto web designers utilize when creating the best law firm website design for our clients.

Law Firm Websites Must Be Responsive

A fully responsive website design is a must-have for the best law firm website. In our experience and research over the years, we’ve found that a substantial portion of web traffic to law firm websites arrives via mobile search. Given the broad accessibility required, a law firm website design that is both fully responsive and optimized for mobile users is crucial to the success of the website as one of the most critical digital marketing tools for law firms.

Identify The Practice Areas of the Law Firm

According to our analysis, when website visitors land on your law firm website, there are two key pieces of information they are looking for; areas of practice and lawyer profile pages. The best law firm website design companies will promote your list of legal services quickly and efficiently while providing a swift and positive user experience on the website. These services should be promoted both on your home page and on profile pages with direct links to more in-depth content about the practice areas. themselves.

A custom website UI design and a clear call-to-action ensure that website visitors are driven through the sales funnel quickly.

Lawyer Profile Pages

The second most sought-after piece of information on your law firm’s website should be your lawyer or partner profiles. A key feature in our professional law firm website design is often featuring custom photography of each lawyer within the firm on a landing page that links through to each lawyer’s professional profile page. The profile pages offer a personal connection to the viewer in addition to building credibility, communicating your areas of expertise, and providing an opportunity to connect via email, phone, or social media.

Clear Calls-to-Action and Methods of Contact

After all the time, effort, and expense your law firm will invest in optimizing your website for search, it’s essential that the law firm website design communicates effectively and funnels website users to the appropriate area of the website that holds the information users seek. The best law firm websites offer a clear call-to-action, which is an avenue to contact information directly via email address, web form, or phone.

The website may also feature prominent CTAs that drive potential clients to areas of the website such as the contact page featuring the law firm phone number and contact form or feature information and resources that your law firm wishes to promote (to increase conversions), or to other marketing opportunities.

Design SEO-optimised Landing Pages

Law firm websites generally offer a range of different legal services or areas of practice and to maximize search engine optimization, each service should have an SEO-optimized landing page for organic search. Each legal service or practice area is unique in some way providing a golden opportunity to cast a wide net for organic web searches and relevant keywords.

By offering SEO-optimized law firm landing pages for each area of practice, the law firm website design can also help users focus on what they’ve come to your law firm website in search of, without confusion or the distraction of other services that may not necessarily be relevant to them at the time.

Website Compliance and Accessibility

As a professional law firm, the website must adhere to the highest level of compliance and provide accessible information to all users whether they use screen readers or a laptop, no one should be left out. In addition to fine-tuning our website design and web development process to comply with the Accessibility for Ontarians Act (AODA), we also partner with a world-class website accessibility AI provider. With a few clicks of a button, this accessibility tool is installed and extends the compliance rating across the full spectrum of WCAG 2.0 compliance.

Limit the Use of Stock Photos in Law Firm Website Design

Website visitors connect with images of people more efficiently than objects. Sourcing professional photography for the best law firm websites can be costly depending on the size of the firm and also the type of practices involved. For example, a law firm practicing family law may often require fewer images than one practicing personal injury law or business law.

However, the investment goes a long way in crafting a personal or professional tone within law firm website designs and helping to strengthen or develop the law firm’s web presence. Stock photography can work if used wisely, however many of the best law firm websites feature widely used stock photography that in most cases is detrimental to user experience and brand perception as it easily “stereotypes” the law firm.

We often see images used in a law firm’s web presence that appear on many other law firm website designs and feature common stereotypes such as a series of leather-bound legal books, a gavel, or even worse, the dreaded scales of justice.

If custom photography is not an option, we use stock photography in moderation and try to theme the imagery in a way that breaks away from the typical stereotypes or literal interpretations of a word, practice, or service. This design strategy allows us to create a consistent emotion throughout our best law firm digital marketing.

We often focus more on the result of excellent legal service, rather than the service itself. This philosophy means showcasing imagery that may suggest an improved lifestyle or personal fulfilment following successful litigation.

Use the Website to Recruit

Law firms often have a high personnel turnover rate, and your website can be a valuable tool in recruiting new lawyers and support staff. Within your law firm website design we recommend a job board where your firm or web administrator can easily add new job postings and share these optimized pages on professional job boards and social media.

Use Testimonials as a Design Feature

Testimonials can go a long way in creating a positive image for your law firm if used effectively within the website design. Through our years of website design experience, we’ve found that using testimonials as a design element to support a specific practice area (as opposed to creating a dedicated page of testimonials) is much more effective in conveying the message and sentiment to visitors.

Our ability to limit the number of testimonials – because visitors are not going to read more than a handful – and the opportunity we have to dress up the testimonial graphically making it more appealing to scan or read quickly.

Create a Law Firm Blog

One of the best ways to attract and engage with an audience is to create a law firm blog. Lawyers are very busy and rarely have time to write articles. However, with as much as a single blog post per month, your law firm website can showcase value to potential clients, play a more active role by promoting events in the community, and help boost the attractiveness of your website to the search engines as well.

About Parachute Design

At Parachute Design, our Toronto website designers follow these best law firm website design practices without fail to create a professional law firm web presence. We have helped numerous lawyers and law firms across Canada and North America to reach better and inform potential clients. Whether you are a small law firm or a sizeable, growing practice, we would love the opportunity to work with you and craft a custom law firm website design specifically for your needs!

For more information on our website design for law firms or to have us prepare a proposal for your legal business, please complete our online quote request form, or call our law firm website design experts in Toronto at 416-901-8633.